The Translator - Softcover

Leila Aboulela

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846970806 ISBN 13: 9781846970801

Publisher: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited, 2008

Synopsis

Sammar is a young Sudanese widow, working as an Arabic translator at a British university. Following the sudden death of her husband, and estranged from her young son, she drifts, grieving and isolated. Life takes a positive turn when she finds herself falling in love with Rae, a Scottish academic. To Sammar, he seems to come from another world and another culture, yet they are drawn to each other. "The Translator" is a story about love, both human and divine. Leila Aboulela's first novel, first published in 1999, was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the IMPAC Dublin Award, and was shortlisted for the Saltire Prize. It has subsequently appeared in editions worldwide.

About this title

About the Author:

Leila Aboulela was born in 1964, grew up in Khartoum and moved to the UK in her twenties to study at the London School of Economics. In 1992, while living in Aberdeen with two young children and a husband working offshore, Leila found comfort through writing about her home city. She attended creative-writing workshops which helped to broaden her reading and introduced her to Scottish writers. Her last novel 'Minaret', published by Bloomsbury, was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Leila Aboulela now lives in Abu Dhabi and is currently working on her third novel.

From Publishers Weekly:

Sammar, a young Sudanese widow, is working as a translator in a Scottish university when love blossoms between herself and her Scottish supervisor, Rae Isles, a scholar of the Middle East and of Third World politics. A religious Muslim who covers her hair, Sammar has left her young son in Khartoum to be raised by her aunt and quells her loneliness by throwing herself into her job translating terrorist documents for kindly divorcé Rae. The two signal their growing love for one another with sympathy (and chastity). On the eve of her trip to Khartoum to see her son and bring him back with her, she confronts Rae, desperate to know if he will accept Islam—since a relationship to her is impossible without marriage, and that marriage is impossible without his conversion. His hesitation reveals the cultural gulf between them, and Sammar is pierced to the quick. Though The Translator is Aboulela's second novel to be released in the U.S., it is the Sudanese-British author's first, published in the U.K. in 1999. (Her third, Minaret, appeared here last year.) With authentic detail and insight into both cultures, Aboulela painstakingly constructs a truly transformative denouement. (Oct.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1846970806
• ISBN 13: 9781846970801
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208